Tchenna Maso Associate

Tchenna has a history of working with popular movements in Latin America. Her work has become more internationalised with her work with populations affected by energy and mining projects, especially in promoting and defending the human rights of communities affected by the activities of transnational companies. Throughout her career in the defence of human rights, she has been involved in cases of great complexity such as the collapse of the Fundão dam in the city of Mariana, Minas Gerais, and the construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant in the Brazilian Amazon. For eight years, she provided legal advice to the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB) and La Via Campesina International. In this work she was involved in the negotiations of the Declaration of Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas and in the construction of the Binding Treaty on Transnational Corporations and Human Rights.

She has a PhD student in Human Rights and Democracy from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) and a Master's degree in Contemporary Latin American Integration from the University of Latin American Integration (UNILA). She is a specialist in Energy in Contemporary Capitalism at the University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), where she graduated in Law. She is a Member of the Homa Institute on Human Rights and Business, the EKOA Socio-environmental Law Research Group (UFPR) and the Institute for Law, Research and Social Movements.

Her most recent work includes research involving participatory methodologies for diagnosing violations of the rights of women affected by energy projects, climate justice from the perspective of movements, and accountability of transnational companies, such as:  Struggles for socio-environmental justice in the face of climate emergency (2023); Nuevo Constitucionalismo Latinoamericano y descolonización del Derecho. (2022); The access to justice of affected women in the Rio Doce case (2021); De la tierra nascen semillas, pero también derechos (2016).

Areas of expertise: 

Mining, peasant rights, corporate power and human rights